Doogie has been acting very weird. The last week or so he has had several accidents which is very unusual for him. Last Thursday night when I got home I noticed one eye was sort of sunken in and he seemed super painful....walking like a little old man. I took him to work with me the next morning and we did rads and lab work and nothing was abnormal. His urine was really concentrated but he hadn't been drinking water (although he was still eating). No neurological symptoms like nytagmus and he knows where his feet are....if you flip them over, he will correct it. We checked his eyes and they are normal. Gums were a little tacky but normal color. No vomiting or diarrhea. He has to be on a tether in the yard or he'll jump the fence so we figured he was playing rough and yoiked himself on the tether and had a soft tissue injury. We gave him sub q fluids and put him on Previcox and Tramadol.

I took him home and he paced for three days. Literally paced at all times unless I put him in his crate. I got the feeling that he was too sore to lay down and was pacing to make himself feel better. It progressively got worse and he would sort of stumble/slide when he would stop pacing. He would also stop mid pace to pee on the floor even when he'd just been outside. He was still refusing to drink water but still eating. Doogie normally sleeps 23 1/2 hours a day and only gets up to eat and go to the bathroom....maybe play a little bit outside but he's generally a very sedate dog by nature. I stopped the Tramadol to see if that might be a side affect but he kept pacing unless he was crated.

I took him to work with me again today and we ran more lab work just to make sure and it's completely normal. We gave him more fluids and he's still eating but refuses water and we couldn't elicit any pain anywhere on examination. We started him on Methocarbimol and he seemed maybe to have just a tad of personality back but still pacing and definitely acting alarmingly weird and 'off' for him.

So his symptoms are:trembling/shakingpacingpantingrefusing waterstumbling/feet slidingdehydrated

My concerns would be something neurological. Sounds very neurological. (keep in mind I am not a tech.)

Has he been tested for Crytococcus? Any chance he has been having seizures that aren't very obvious? How old is Doogie?

Any chance you could put him on Iv fluids for like 12 hrs + also sedate him enough so he can sleep, and maybe kind of "reset".

On second thought, maybe both of you would like to be sedated so you can sleep

You're really going through a rough patch

I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day, tomorrow doesn't look good either.
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"You didn't know of the magical powers of the break stick? It's up there with genies and Harry Potter as far as magic levels go." SisMorphine 01/07/07

His spine and neck looked normal. We got his whole body in the rads and there was nothing abnormal found. Other than the weird behavior the vet saw nothing in the exam that gave us neurological symptoms.

Doogie is about seven years old and I guess he could be having some seizure episodes without anyone noticing, especially if they were absence seizures.

He has not been tested for Crytococcus....I'll check on that. He seems marginally better this morning but he almost fell over when he first got up. But I actually got a tail wag and a little eye contact this morning which is more personality than I've seen in almost a week.

~Jeanine

You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

Simon had a host of neuro problems in his old age. The sunken eye sounds like Horner's Syndrome and I seem to recall the vet telling me that it can be linked to ear (and other) infections or even problems further down the spinal cord-- something made me think it was related to his incontinence, though I can't find any info on that right now... Simon seemed to have neurologically-related urinary incontinence and either severe arthritis in his spine or some other sort of spinal issue-- he couldn't really wag his tail or squat comfortably to potty. He also had chronic UTIs. Tramadol went a long way to making him comfortable.

Poor Doogie... Thinking lots and lots of good thoughts for you guys!!!

"In these bodies, we will live; in these bodies we will die.Where you invest your love, you invest your life." --Marcus Mumford

So it looks like Doogie definitely has a neck injury. He had acupuncture done and just a slight chiro adjustment (he's too inflamed to do much adjusting at this point). He fell asleep during his treatment but seems to be feeling better already. If you're on FB I posted a good pic of him getting his acupuncture done.

~Jeanine

You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

If it makes you feel better: We have a Havanese on our flyball team (for those that don't know...he's about the size of a shih tzu) that got creamed by a 60# Aussie a few years ago. Just ran right over him in the lane. The Havanese ended up having a fracture in his spine...and was out for a while. But with PT, good meds, etc...he's back to normal.

"I don't have any idea if my dogs respect me or not, but they're greedy and I have their stuff." -- Patty Ruzzo

"Dogs don't want to control people. They want to control their own lives." --John Bradshaw

He's definitely feeling much better already. He finally drank some water and actually *slept* well. He looked fully relaxed for the first time in almost a week. He'll be getting acu several times a week for a couple of weeks and then we'll re access how he's doing and go from there. I'm so glad we finally have a diagnosis for poor Stinky Doogie.

~Jeanine

You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

Doogie ended up with many more needles in than this but he almost immediately layed his head in Dr. Hannah's lap and relaxed and went to sleep. He's got a cervical subluxation and Dr. Hannah said he probably had a really bad migraine because he was light sensitive and squinty. She put a lot of needles in his head/face area. He'll be on strict crate rest for several weeks.

~Jeanine

You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.